Saturday, April 26, 2014

Born in Warsaw, Poland, to a
Jewish family, Anna Held often headlined the Folies-Bergere. Later, Held would
claim Paris as her birthplace, shave a few years off her age and convert to
Catholicism upon her marriage to a Uruguayan playboy, Maximo Carrera. With
Carrera, Held had a daughter named Liane. In 1896, Held met Florenz Ziegfeld when
he hired her to be in one of his productions. By 1897 the two were in love and
despite being able to legally marry (her first husband would not grant her a
divorce) they were, after seven years, considered husband and wife by virtue of
New York’s common law. It was Held who inspired the ‘Ziegfeld Follies’. In
1918, Held died at the age of 46 from multiple myeloma, a rare disease at the
time. Her funeral took place at Campbell’s in NYC and was well attended by stars
of the era, save for Ziegfeld who abhorred funerals. Held’s “Empire-Style”
burial site, boasts a stone arch and two benches. Purchased for her by actress Lillian
Russell, Held’s funeral was one of the first to take place in Westchester’s
Gate of Heaven Cemetery. She was memorialized by Carl Sandburg in his poem, An Electric Sign Goes Dark.

About Me

I am the author of Gardens of Stone: The Cemeteries of New York from Colonial Times to the Present. (Fonthill, 2016) Green-Wood Cemetery (Arcadia Publishing, 2008) and Grave Undertakings (New Horizon Press, 2003). For 20 years I have been a regular contributor to American Cemetery & American Funeral Director Magazines. In that time, I have profiled a number of noted cemeteries, including Green-Wood, Calvary, Oakland, Gate of Heaven, Salem Fields, Ferncliff, Kensico and Moravian. My interest in cemeteries began as an offshoot of my career as a funeral director. Having spent time in many cemeteries in my capacity as a funeral director, made me see that graveyards are so much more than a place to bury the dead. They are also repositories of history, set on bucolic grounds, where one can admire diverse architectural styles while reflecting upon the intersection of life and death.